


The Apocalypse Is Now, And We Need A Break

by whaleofatime



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Japan, M/M, Relationship in later chapter, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Some time in an alternate future, War, the voltron show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 04:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13826406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleofatime/pseuds/whaleofatime
Summary: The one where Shirogane Takashi is one arm down, one team up, and trying to keep the cheer in the Voltron Japan twice-weekly broadcasts during these, the end of days.Or,Where the Galra are a nation intent on winning a world war, and Shiro’s doing his best to be the face that launches a thousand revolutions.





	The Apocalypse Is Now, And We Need A Break

 Personally, he’d always thought it would be a superbug. A superbug bringing about the apocalypse, sounds just about right.

 It ends up being horrifying world war with the Galra trying to swallow everyone up and succeeding, mostly. They’re being worked hard in a few spots; Switzerland’s still resisting hard as all hell, and last Shiro heard Bolivia’s taking high-altitude guerrilla warfare to increasingly higher heights. There’s talk that with the Tanzanian Forces re-conquering Zanzibar, Dar Es-Salaam might be theirs yet, so it isn't The End, the end.

 Just... close.

 He’s in what used to be Sapporo, Japan, where the winters are frigid and the Galra keep on trying their luck. Tokyo was lost ground early on in World War: Final Edition, and suddenly Hokkaido and Okinawa found themselves full of refugees. The Shiroganes, used to cold living in the mountainsides of Nagano had packed up young Takashi and tried to make the journey through the war-torn countryside years ago.

 Takashi loses his father when he’s 18 and Things Explode somewhere in Niigata. Takashi loses his arm when he’s 20 and a plastic bomb goes off in Sendai when the rebel forces were trying to fend off the Galran march to the north. Takashi misplaces his mother when the hastily-built flat barge operators at the Tsugaru strait aimed at Hokkaido put them on different boats. His sinks; he still hopes hers made it.

 He spends a year in a prison camp; the Galra fished him out of the ocean like he was flotsam, and he was treated like he was jetsam. He breaks out; he thinks he had assistance but after the nth knock to the head he’s awful confident that his grasp of reality will always be just a little loose and just a lot nightmarish.

 He’s 22 when he picks up Keith at the south-end of Hokkaido; Takashi’s going by Shirogane now, hoping someone will recognise the Shirogane genes in his jaw and his build and point him to his mother. Keith’s a street-rat, and they meet because Keith tries (and almost succeeds!) to steal his pack of goods.

 Keith is fierce and tries to bite him and stab him and choke him and trip him, but Shirogane’s got some strength to him for all that he’s lost. A Keith in the hand is less terrifying than a Keith in the bush, so he keeps him on a leash and tries to be… something. A caretaker, he thought at first. He stops Keith from snapping at other refugees and he stops the other refugees from trying to murder Keith. He gets them food, because he learned how to get bait on a line somewhere in Aomori and fish seem to like him.

 He upgrades Keith to ‘friend’, when Keith takes down 2 armed men who had him pinned down with a knife to his throat, nurses him back to health after some quite severe blood loss, and starts calling him “Shiro”.

 They make it to Sapporo, more or less in one piece, and Shiro thinks he’s been unlucky often enough that maybe this is _It_. Maybe he’ll find his mother, and after a few months of Keith being extremely bad at dealing with her he’ll get good the way he’s gotten so good with Shiro. Maybe a freak locust plague will eat the Galra out of central Japan, and he can show Keith the view of Mount Fuji from his backyard. Maybe the universe will spit out a hero, and things will be good!

 He’s 25 when he finds the universe’s Champion; it’s him, and oh, he sure has been spat upon.

 What’s one more hock of saliva, huh.

-

 Voltron’s a Mess, and this is coming from Shiro, who gets nightmares more nights than not and occasionally frightens himself when he catches a glimpse of his face in the mirror. Hell, he’s pretty sure his mother might not even recognise him (if she’s even still alive), with all the changes and all the years wearing so heavy on his face.

 Voltron’s a Hot Mess, some sort of vague coalition with branches in a bunch of countries, trying to rabble-rouse and gather intel and share information with as diverse a cast as possible. Voltron Japan’s inexplicably lead by a nice British woman with a vendetta the size of western Europe, a Cuban military man who had come by on holiday with his Hawaiian friend before all hell broke loose, and an American girl masquerading as an American boy hellbent on looking for her family.

 “The problem,” Allura says, after their Grand Meeting (him stopping a Galran sniper with his sights on her in the ruins of Sapporo station), “is that we need someone the Japanese public can stand behind.” She shrugs a delicate shoulder, and Shiro wonders when he can leave. Keith’s a vibrating ball of barely-contained displeasure in the background; he’s bad with new people, he’s bad with authority figures, he’s bad at things that might get Shiro hurt (though he stubbornly insists that he’s just looking out for Shiro who (supposedly!) can’t be trusted with his own well-being.)

 (”Leave it,” Keith had hissed, when Shiro had glanced the sniper’s gun aimed at the tall dark lady with the fluffy white hair. “You’re going to get shot,” he’d shouted, as Shiro tackles the man to the ground and Keith kicks the gun away.

 “God-fucking-dammit,” Keith mutters, when a startled Allura shines her diplomatic smile on them and goes “Have you heard of Voltron?”)

 Shiro just nods along, manic grin in place. “Yes, I can see how that might be.”

 “Which is why,” she continues on, “we need you as the face of Voltron.”

 It’s not a good face anymore, Shiro wants to say, but he doesn’t.

 “The rest of us have military experience or technical expertise, so you needn’t worry about actually spearheading our attacks. We just need someone with a face people can trust to do our broadcasts-”

 “And I’m just too exotic to do PSAs,” the Cuban one interjects, winking, and Shiro gets the distinct impression that Keith may well be baring his teeth by now.

 “Look,” Shiro tries to regain control of the situation, “I’m honestly flattered, Miss Allura, but there must be a lot of people who could do a better job.”

 “You’d be the best thing on TV,” Keith snarls in the background, and Shiro reckons it’s about time to wrestle control back from the madness and try to tamp down on feeling so ridiculously flattered.

 “I can promise to help while I’m still here in Sapporo,” he offers in the end, and Allura grins like she’s got teeth and she’s got claws and both will soon be sinking into him, but she just politely accepts it and says goodbye.

 “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Keith tells him fiercely as they slink out of Voltron Japan headquarters (the agricultural division of Hokkaido University). “They can’t make you, I won’t let them.”

 “I know,” Shiro says, and he Feels it. It’s not hard to convince Shiro to do something for the sake of the Greater Good, but it’s hard as nails to make Keith do anything he doesn't want to. It’s heart-warming, honestly. “You’ve got my back, buddy, it’s hard to not notice.”

 Keith looks satisfied with that, and it’s all good and it’s all fine, somehow-

 Until the Galra drop bombs on Wednesday like it’s an acceptable thing that happens on Wednesdays, and Shiro figures that whatever he’s got left, he’s going to give.

 The walk back to the Agricultural Department the day after the raid is through mounds of rubble and a lot of wailing. Shiro tells Keith that he doesn’t need to do this, this Voltron thing. “I know you’re not a big fan of groupwork, Keith, and this is all groupwork. You don’t have to join, just keep in touch.” Neither of them are military, and Keith is not a fan of public relations. Shiro’s trying to be good to all the parties involved: Voltron, Sapporo, the entirety of Japan, Keith.

 Mostly Keith, if Shiro’s entirely honest. It’s been an awul, no-good, terrible life for them both, but Shiro wants to be good to Keith, at least.

 “As though I’d just leave you,” Keith says with what might have been a scoff if he could have managed to look less all-encompassingly earnest.

 Shiro’s touched. Keith’s an avenging angel, pretty much, and his flaming sword doesn’t really take sides other than that of the people he cares about.

 Shiro counts as one, and while he knows that not even the most aggressive street-urchin-with-a-secret-past can make a one-man-stand worth jack in the face of the Galran Forces, sometimes he looks at Keith and he just _believes_.

 The research lab that Allura has commandeered as Voltron HQ is buzzing with activity, the lady herself standing on top of a table and giving orders with casual British imperialism as she organises the mess of people into emergency responders. Despite all this, though, she spots him as soon as he slides the door open, and she beckons him to come closer even as she keeps giving out instructions.

 It’s a little odd, to see a foreigner give orders in fluent Japanese that somehow carries the tint of a 40-year-old man from Osaka, but everyone responds and the activity doesn’t cease, even when Shiro’s right by her side and Keith’s glowering hard enough to generate a forcefield around himself.

 “Hello, miss-” Shiro begins, not totally sure how to broach the subject.

 Allura takes over for him easily. “Just Allura’s fine, Shiro. You came just in time; we go live in 30 minutes, so try and brainstorm something really reassuring to say to the people of Japan. Pidge’s managed to piggyback on the Galran broadcasting network as well as most of the still-active radio stations, so you’ll have quite the audience.”

 Honestly, Shiro would like some reassurance himself, but needs must and oh, how Sapporo needs a pick-me-up after yesterday. So he nods and goes to find a corner he can sit in and think about the right thing to say.

 Keith keeps him company in silence for the first few minutes, but if ever there’s a man of action it’s him. Shiro sees him fidgeting, eyes sharp and looking over all the things that need doing (it’s a hell of a long list).

 It still takes him by surprise when Keith clasps him by the shoulder, grip tight and sure. “You’re going to do fine,” Keith says, like he’s stating an immutable fact. “You’re good at being good to people, so don’t freak out.”

 Shiro doesn’t know if Keith can see through his pokerface, or if Keith just generally assumes that Shiro as a person is a mess of a man, because Keith’s got this motivational-coaching thing down to an art. The burning faith’s warming, even if it's also terrifying.

 Much like this new job, Shiro supposes, but also much like an actual house fire.

 “I’ll do my best,” is about all he can dredge up, but Keith seems plenty satisfied.

 “That’s going to be enough,” Keith says, squeezing tightly, before taking a step back and going to help people he deems more in trouble than Shiro.

 During that terrible year when he was caught, Shiro remembers a couple of times when a prison guard had finished a bottle of booze and flung it at his head. God bless Japan’s push to use recyclable bottles 50 years ago, but the bottles were thick and more like a bludgeon than anything else.

 He feels a bit like that now; a little concussed, a little manic, and wishing that he could partake in some alcohol too. But needs must.

 Shiro does his best to brush his hair back as neat as he can manage it, discreetly checks that his eyeliner hasn’t smudged (a man’s allowed his vices, especially in this newly-rotten world!), and tries to meditate.

 When Allura fetches him he’s still drawing a blank, until he remembers a random passage from his social studies textbook a lifetime ago,

“Boys, be ambitious!”

 Didn’t a famous man say that while he stood here in Hokkaido? Maybe. Shiro wishes he remembers more of what was said, but with the world collapsing around their ears, he’s suddenly sure that what people need is not gentle reassurance and a plea to steadfastly stay the course.

 Boy, be ambitious!

 He’d meant to be meek and mild and consoling, at first, but the American girl with the large glasses turns the web camera on her laptop to face him, and suddenly Shiro’s full of fire and he wants to burn the Japanese populace right up.

 He starts with “Hello” and a bit of a crooked smile.

 He ends with “Not tsunamis, not earthquakes, not wars could stop us before, and the Galra will not stop us now,” and blood pounding in his ears.

 The Cuban man whoops, though Shiro’s not convinced the man understands all that much Japanese, and the mass of people around them are doing war-cries or just crying, and reality’s gone a bit hazy at the edges as Allura gently pushes him off-screen and tells the masses (in her hilariously thick Osakan accent) that the Voltron Coalition is here to help.

 Keith’s waiting for him off-screen, looking part-proud mostly-amused. “You looked like you could have taken down a tank with just determination out there.”

 Shiro can’t stop the slightly giddy smile rocketing across his face. “Keith, I might have.”

-

 The Voltron Show becomes a Thing, and everyone’s recruited. They try to do a bi-weekly show, part-news broadcast part-variety show. They usually start with Allura giving a brief report of their gains and losses by Voltron and the Japan Self-Defence Forces, often re-enacted with great gusto by Lance and the occasional sock puppet. Lance is a showboat of a man, tall and grinning and somehow tanned even in the middle of a frigid Hokkaido winter. Shiro’s unsure about him at first, is generally unsure of anyone so boisterous and outgoing and unbothered about reading the atmosphere. It takes a while to learn that Lance was a humble multilingual tour-guide and a not-so-humble officer in the Cuban Civil Defence, stuck here onthe world’s least pleasant but most productive holiday. “I live to serve, y’know,” he’d said after a one-off puppet-extravaganza special targeted at helping kids with trauma (aha, it’s basically all of ‘em). “I like meeting new people, so the tour guide thing was good for that, but the good Lord put just one of me on this planet, and it’s my duty to make people appreciate His Gifts.” He’d followed it with a wink, and that was around when Shiro figures that it’s not so much that Lance can’t read the atmosphere, as he is selective about when to listen and when to push on through.

 Next, there’s a Self-Defence section, created solely to seduce Keith into participation where for 15 minutes he’s allowed to do his damnedest to beat up someone while giving the occasional tip.

 Keith doing over the shoulder throws is bizarrely popular; Shiro is amused by how quickly propaganda posters showing Keith flinging the Galran ruler Zarkon (often drawn humorously, bitterly, as some sort of massive gross lizard-man) to the ground  spread after the first time Keith lays Shiro out on the mat. Keith could take on a bear, probably, and it’s a good look on him (Shiro’s always admired Keith’s fundamental unflappable Keith-ness, and now the people of Japan have the chance to get on his level).

 Then it’s Pidge-and-Hunk, tech-wonder extraordinaires, teaching people how to maintain their radios, how to build transmitters, how to detect mines with a detector cobbled together from digital watches and washlets. Pidge usually goes way too fast for the translator assigned to her, but her bit’s gotten better once she stopped narrating what she’s doing with her hands and starts walking her translator through the steps instead. Hunk’s a natural presenter, patient and in possession of an absurdly soothing voice. Hunk tells Shiro one drunken night in quite neat Japanese that he had been doing his Ph.D. on mechanical engineering in Japan on scholarship, and Lance had come to visit him when the Galra blew in and everything shut down, and he’s working with Voltron Pacific and Voltron Central America to contact their families, and it’s terrifying and he’s constantly afraid but if there’s something he can do to help, he’s gonna (even if it gets him hurt and makes him sick and and and-). Shiro’s got a janky radar he built using their tutorial and a beat-up Nokia mobile phone (they did, indeed, survive the apocalypse), and it’s his pride and joy, pretty much the same way Pidge and Hunk are by this point.

 That done, they have Ushijima-san on for an agricultural segment; The War-Time Garden That Works For You, sharing advice that’s usually heavy on the growing of tubers (Ushijima-san is quietly confident that effective potato and soybean cultivation will save the nation). Sometimes, he’ll talk about bees and wildflowers and how to care for chrysanthemums and hydrangeas.

 When the man does a bit on planting tulip bulbs so that they can welcome spring together, Shiro is a little overwhelmed. The stone-faced Ushijima-san going “The flowers are more beautiful in spring because they have endured the harsh winter,” is an inadvertent metaphor, and he takes it whole, swallows that bulb of belief and hopes that when the Galran winter ends, there’s space to flourish.

 The penultimate segment is Ooyama-baa-chan’s Cooking With What You Have bit, where the incredibly spry 70-year-old native Sapporo lady shows people how to feed a family of 4 on potato peels and wild grasses, cooked on a car bonnet over hot coals. The Galran invasion’s a wave of concrete, trying to sink them and smother them and drown them, and oh, they really are overwhelmed.

 Watching Ooyama-baa-chan gamely teaching the young ‘uns how to hunt for pheasants with a homemade bow and arrow is a really good way to keep reminding people that even a dandelion can break through pavement.

 Patience yields focus, focus yields results. Ooyama-baa-chan’s ancient as anything with a head full of soft permed white hair, slender and enduring and she’s a surviving weed and damn if that isn’t somehow incredibly heartening.

 Always at the end is Shiro’s turn, and he tries to be a Courageous Leader but he suspects he mostly ends up more soft than inspiring.

 “We can do this,” is what he always ends up saying. “It might look like we can’t, it might feel like there’s nothing more you have left to give, but you need to hold on. We’ll hold on together, we’ll support each other, and we will see this through.”

 He’s not sure if he sounds convincing when half the time he’s trying to convince himself, but they’re all doing their best, all 70 odd million of them, and they deserve to hear that, even if Shiro’s often stuck with just hearing it from himself.

 They attack, they defend, they win, they lose.

 They endure.

-

 Lance is a big fan of really old pop music; he’s a little defensive about it, and Shiro doesn’t understand why when Shiro is a man built like a boulder who listens to folk songs to unwind in the night.

 “It’s ‘cos my grandparents only had smuggled MP3s of popular songs way back in the day, and they hoarded it like gold and they’d play it allllll the time when we were kids!” Lance had protested, when it’s his turn to pick music for their weekly strategy meeting and Pidge asks him what’s his deal with pop music from half a century ago.

“This one’s pretty catchy,” Shiro admits, eyes still stuck fast to the map of Tokyo. While he had had his doubts when Allura first suggested he and Keith start taking part in the military side of things, Shiro's come to find that his viciously-honed survival instincts make him a bit of a tactician. He's mostly glad that now there's more he can do to contribute, even when things are rough as they are now (as they are always, to be honest). The Kantou Rebels and the Blades of Marumura are planning a massive offensive to try to retake Shibuya, and Allura is hellbent on providing aid because standing on the sidelines is not Voltron Japan’s way, for better or worse. They have a fair number of allies, but going all the way down to Tokyo would stretch them thin. It’s a sticky situation.

 It’s a catchy song. The chorus is a man repeatedly going heyyyyyyy yaaaaa, and someone giving greetings repeatedly is oddly soothing.

 Keith’s frowning before he picks up his avatar, a little red cat statuette he’d carved out of white birch (Keith does things with his hands and knives when he’s trying to keep calm) and drags it down the map from Sapporo to Tokyo. “I grew up in the Shibuya area,” he provides tersely, and it’s a shock to everyone, including Shiro. Keith’s tight-lipped on his past, and everyone’s learned to just go along with it.

 This is a bit of a bombshell (-yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-).

 Keith just keeps going. “It’s more familiar to me than it is to any of you; you should send me to help organise things down there.”

 There’s an outcry, because they’ve gotten used to fighting as a team and planning as a team and just generally functioning as a team, and having Keith gone would be like missing an arm.

 Shiro's very familiar with that feeling; he _really_ doesn’t need to feel it doubled.

 Not surprisingly, Lance’s protests are the loudest. “The hell we should! If anyone should go, it should be me! Y’know, the one with the actual military career. And besides that, Keith, buddy, pal, my man. No offence, but you are not a people person.”

 Keith looks ready to snap back, but instead he closes his eyes, breathes in for 4, breathes out for 6. It’s a testament to how good they’ve gotten at dealing with each other that Lance gives him time to breathe instead or going for the jugular.

 It takes a couple more cycles, before Keith manages to rein in his temper. “I know the terrain, and I ran around between a couple of groups when I was down there before they made everyone evacuate a few years ago. I’m not a people person, but I’m still the most qualified.”

 Lance squawks in reflexive outrage, but his posture goes less aggressive as he mulls over what Keith’s said.

 Shiro hates the idea, hates the very concept of splitting up, but there’s virtue in Keith’s suggestion. Keith’s got leadership qualities; so do all of them, but out in the field on their own, right now Shiro trusts Keith’s judgement the most. He’s never met anyone who could so earnestly make the tough but necessary call, no matter how unpleasant.

 Pidge has her own priorities, and Shiro knows them and respects them. Lance is sharp and Lance has experience, but Lance is also the one most likely to make emotional decisions (it’s not always healthy to live to serve). Hunk’s bright as anything, but he’s not the type to be able to take control until he’s gotten familiar and comfortable.

 There’s no time for familiar and comfortable. It’s just gone the new year now, and the rebels want to hit them hard during this February freeze.

 Keith’s the best option, and judging by the look on Allura’s face and Coran’s (a New Zealander from Voltron Oceania who smuggled his way here on Galra cargo ships after receiving a call for aid from his goddaughter), they don’t disagree.

 Lance’s MP3 quality is horrendous and mildly garbled, but Shiro swears he can hear the singing man going _if nothing lasts forever then what makes (what makes)_

_Keith the exceeeeeeption?_

 Shiro takes a deep breath, in for 4, out for 6. “Keith, are you sure?”

 Keith makes solid eye contact as he nods. “Leave it to me. I’ll be back once we take Shibuya.”

 It’s a war of attrition; the only way this would be anything other than a prolonged battle is if the Galra forces overwhelm the coalition, and everyone gets butchered.

 It’s a Catch-22. Either Keith will be gone for ages, or Keith will be gone forever.

 In for 4, out for 6.

 “Let’s work out the details, then.”

-

 It’s rough rough rough.

 Keith departs with a small militia he trained himself, all of them cloaked in dark clothes and slipping away in the night, so that Galra drones can’t track them so easy. Shiro wishes him luck, reminds him for the 500th time to be safe, and that patience yields focus, and and and-

 He’s backseat driving while they’re still face to face, that’s how low he’s sunk.

 Keith demonstrates patience that somehow always shows up when he’s dealing with Shiro, and tugs him into a tight, indulgent hug. “You stay safe up here,” Keith tells him, stern-fond.

 Shiro’s not the one heading straight for the front lines, but these days ‘safe’ is a concept that’s terribly far away. He just holds on tighter.

 The rest of the team are there to send them off, Pidge and Hunk double-checking the electronics, and Lance going over their guns. Allura’s talking to Keith’s second-in-command to go over (once again) the ground situation in Shibuya and how to access the area, and Coran’s making sure that their vehicles can take the long journey.

 It’s a long hug; their hugs usually are.

 “Go,” Shiro says, finally pulling away. “Be great.”

 Keith nods like a samurai accepting an order, and they melt away into the frigid night, swallowed up by snow and darkness.

 It’s been a long, long few years, and it’s gonna be a long, long few more, it feels like.

 Honestly, he’s still hoping a superbug comes and ends all of them.

 “C’mon, Shiro,” Hunk murmurs, and leads Shiro back into the old halls of the Agricultural department. “I’m thinking there’s some beer and some hot stew with your name on it.”

 Shiro’s calling it; tomorrow’s broadcast is going to suuuuuuuck.

-

 They lose touch with Keith and the fighters in Shibuya about a month after Keith joins with the Blades of Marumura, and Shiro can now add stress ulcers to the running tally of blights upon his life wrought by the Galra. They slow him down about as much as his missing arm does (not very much at all).

 In the midst of the radio silence, Lance gets dispatched to Abashiri in late February along with a heavily armed division to join the militia there and fend off an attack mounted on the coast by the desperate Galra posted at Vladivostok; it’s going to be a Big One. Russia in her grand Russian way has laid waste to the attacking forces aided by a harsh winter and -40 degree winds, and her army’s moving east to recover more land. If Lance wins on this end and Russia does what she does best on hers, they can deal a hell of a blow to the bastards.

 Hunk had wanted to go too, steadfast and loyal and scared and determined, but Allura needed him to work on improving security measures of Voltron Japan HQ. There’s news in the wind that there are a lot of defectors from the Galran army seeing refuge, and until they can be confident that there aren’t any turncoats, Allura needs to play a delicate game of balancing human rights and protecting the people.

 Shiro was more than willing to go, untested though he is in any sort of battle other than the bloody death-matches during his imprisonment, but that had been soundly rejected.

 Lance had summed it up best, grinning sunnily even though his face is the palest Shiro's seen in all the months of knowing him. “You’re the face of Voltron, boss man, and it’s a real good one. You guys can spare me, ‘cos I’m a leg at most, so just leave it to me and I’ll stick Voltron’s boot so far up Galran ass they’re gonna hurl imitation leather for the next half century.”

  _I have only so many limbs left to give_ , Shiro thinks, but what he does is invest his sleepless nights after Lance’s departure to co-ordinate attacks with their Russian counterparts, aided by Maho-chan and Sekiguchi-sensei of the Hokkaido University Russian studies department. He can’t control any outcome, but he can stack the odds in their favour, however slightly.

 After all, both Lance and Hunk had promised him an extremely long beach holiday once all this is done, and not God nor Galra will stop him from sipping mojitos and catching agonising sunburns in this hypothetical future he's going to drag into reality.

-

 It’s bloody and it’s gruesome, but they somehow win the battle of Okhotsk. Hunk’s taken over Lance’s role of puppet master during Allura’s news segment, and no one says anything about how he keeps having to clear his throat and blow his nose and rub at his eyes through it all.

 Now, if only Lance could just contact them and tell them that he had survived despite the heavy losses, that would be great.

 Shiro keeps trying to keep motivation high, fortifying the rickety ship that is Voltron’s rebellion with whatever words he can gather.

 They might win, he thinks. The tides feel like they’re turning, in a way that he has’t felt since his parents had told him to pack, quick! We have to get away!

 They might win, but Shiro thinks he’s been on his last legs since Tokyo fell all those years ago, and once there’s no duty and no adrenaline to hold him up, he can’t really imagine just…. living.

 It’s grim, but he just needs to hang in there. The world needs to hang in there! All of them are fighting against the Galra!

 They just need to hang in there while the ground forces tally the sick, the wounded, the dead, the living, Lance.

 (Shiro reckons that he probably won’t get more than a couple of hours of sleep until they know , and he wouldn’t be surprised if Hunk is getting maybe half of that in naps as he waits to hear about Lance).

-

 When Pidge pipes up during breakfast one morning that she has found a lead on her brother and father, hapless visiting volcanologists who disappeared the way thousands did when the Galra suddenly attacked Japan, Shiro’s not even faintly surprised. Part of being a leader (or a co-leader, sorry, Allura) is the ability to accurately predict things that happen in the future.

 Pidge needing to leave has always been inevitable, and Shiro is just waiting to find out what will rip Hunk and Allura away too. When Pidge says that the last known whereabouts of her brother was Shibuya (by now, a hell on Earth), all Shiro can do is restrain a hysterical chuckle.

 “You sure, Pidge?” he asks while Allura is working herself into a bit of a fit, saying that Pidge cannot abandon the cause, not now!

 The girl nods, glasses smudged from how much she’s been futzing with then. “My facial recognition software got a hit from one of the Galran patrol drones. It’s him, and I need to go pick him up.”

 Allura is getting increasingly more and more infuriated, but hey, the Vol in Voltron stands for Volunteers (it doesn’t actually, but no one is gonna change Shiro’s mind) and Shiro is not a forcing man. He’ll talk Allura down; Pidge is a one in a million genius, but they have about 40-odd computer science majors that regularly come by HQ to help, and they’ll figure something out. After all, needing to go fetch is an impulse Shiro’s intimately familiar with. Sometimes he just wants to run into the wilderness and try to catch the scent of his mother and Keith and Lance and next maybe even Pidge, grab them all by the scruff and bring them all back.

 He does, however, have one stipulation.

 “The Blade of Marumura managed to take over the suburbs of Shibuya, and they promised us that Keith’s still alive and kicking down there. He should be able to get in touch in the next few days; don’t leave until you two make plans together.”

 It’s easy to see her frown at him going ‘don’t’ instead of ‘shouldn’t’, but Voltron’s members seem to have a terrible habit of going AWOL, and Shiro has had Enough of that, thank you very much.

 Something in the set of his face must give his feelings away; Pidge backs down.

 After a long, fraught disappearance, Keith comes back online at long last, the return of the prodigal son, and Pidge plans to leave within the week.

 (Keith calls Shiro’s number a few hours after he gives his debriefing of months worth of fighting and infiltration and intelligence-gathering. Shiro feels overwhelmed to hear Keith again, and if this war hadn’t wrung him so dry he might have started crying, honestly.

 Instead he croaks a “Welcome back”, and screws his eyes shut real tight when Keith murmurs “Good to be back”.)

-  
  
 Lance comes on the screen, transmitting from a medical tent in Abashiri, looking banged up a treat. A kindly nurse is holding his communicator for him, and Hunk bursts into tears at the casts and the bandages and the stitches and the spots of blood, but mostly at seeing Lance again.

 “Heya guys, did you miss me?” Lance’s voice comes through a little garbled; quality webcameras are in short supply in the field, but it still rings through the computer lab they’re holed up in like a victory bell. Shiro feels a bit stuffy behind the eyes again; it’s hard to keep his calm when Keith is okay, Pidge is okay, and now they know that Lance is okay too.

 His peace of mind right now is Off-Limits to the war, bless. Well-being is a relative thing in this world, and she has kept her distance with dogged persistence from Shiro for years, but she's got her kiss for him and it feels warm in the chest. "Took you a while to get back in touch, buddy, we were a little worried. You holding up all right?"

 Ah, the finger guns of bygone days make a reappearance. Shiro is almost tempted to do them right back, but he refrains (he could only do just the one gun anyways). Lance seems to be in remarkable good cheer, but seeming to be in remarkable good cheer might as well be Lance's special power. "They're being really nice to me over here, even though the language barrier can get real gnarly sometimes. The medic said that as long as I don't pop a fever in the next few days, she'll let me go and I can make my way back to HQ. Sergeant Lance's gonna be reportin' back for duty before you know it, princess!"

 Between the grainy camera quality and Lance having one eye under bandages, the wink (blink?) goes a bit awry and hits Hunk instead of Allura, but it's all good.

 It's really, genuinely all good. Shiro's smiling, and isn't that a rare sight? "Take your time, Lance, we'll hold the fort for you. I've got to discuss some things about our next show with Allura, so Hunk, mind keeping Lance company for a bit?"

 Hunk flashes a bright grin and a cheery thumbs up. "Thanks for the private time, Shiro. I'll come and help once Lance finishes his story time. Knowing him, I might miss dinner."

 Lance's indignant squawk and Hunk's laughter sees them off, and for this tiniest of moments, Shiro truly believes that everything's going to be okay.

-

 Spooked by their recent losses, the Galra attack in the night dressed in shadows and flinging stun grenades, and Shiro's up and moving before his brain is all the way awake, thinking that _no_ , the Galra will not take Allura, _no_ , the Galra will not take Hunk.

 As Keith is fond of exasperatedly pointing out, in a crisis situation, Shiro is always prone to forget himself.

 The Galra do not.

 The blow to the back of his head comes out of nowhere, and hits so hard that before he loses consciousness he's sure he tastes bile in his mouth.

 Things go dark, and his last, fleeting thought is an extremely hearty _fuck_.

-

 When the first explosions had gone off, Allura had been awake, dressed in a warm hoody and fleecy pyjamas while doing the editing on their latest Voltron Show in the control room. At first, the entire building shaking with no warning had her assuming it was a terrible earthquake, but the gunfire and the screaming started soon after that.

 She's already slammed down the button for the emergency klaxon system before the explosives take down the heavy reinforced door to the control room, and the first Galran soldier through gets a mug full of piping hot coffee straight to their face. The second one gets shot in the leg, the third gets downed by an office chair to the back of the head. They're shooting blindly, but Allura's one target who knows how to hide in this large room and they're hitting each other a lot by the sounds of it. She's Enraged, so _furiously_ angry her hands are shaking as she sneaks behind a large table to fling a bench towards the mob before rolling away neatly to find a better position to take aim. If Lance has taught her one thing, it's to always, always have a gun she's good with nearby, and to make Keith feel less left out she had also taken to wearing a diving knife strapped to her thigh at all times.

 It's a nightmare to sleep in, but months of mild discomfort are repaid tenfold when the knife slides like butter through the closest combat boot and the shriek that follows it gallantly tries to shatter glass.

 Retreating to a blind spot, Allura neatly climbs an ancient wooden bookcase and sets up shop.

 The entrance to the room is a bottleneck of Galra, and in the dark, she smiles.

 It's like shooting fish in a barrel, and they go down like it's an inevitability. 

 Allura takes time to reload from the ammo stash kept in one of the drawers, and gets ready to wage her one-woman war until she can get to the rest of Voltron.

-

 Hunk isn't much of a fighter, he really, really isn't. When adrenaline hits it tends to hit so hard he gets nauseous, he doesn't like the thought of getting hurt, and is deeply uncomfortable with the thought of hurting someone. Hunk isn't here for military might, and he fully realises that there are men of action and there are men who are not, and he is Not.

 What he is, though, is a mildly-paranoid engineer with busy fingers and a willingness to overlook his creed of Do No Harm as long as it's not, y'know, directly.

 The tablet on his bedside table hums a chirpy little tune; it's Lance whistling, so that means that the west entrance has been breached. It wakes him right up, and the klaxons coming on all of a sudden tell him that they've got company and that the control room's Occupied. His tablet keeps making different sounds; Allura's heavy Osakan dialect going "What t'heck," means that the signal jammers near central command have turned on and are scrambling anything not programmed by team Voltron.

 Keith's going "Voltron?" means that the roof hatches have been blown off, but it also means that the foam cannons have gone off and there is probably a mess of bodies stuck together under a thousand pounds of hardening foam.

 The tablet keeps chirping out alert after alert, and Hunk's happily setting off the digital switches to about 6 dozen booby traps he's got linked to his pad before he hears the one alert he absolutely, most definitely didn't want to hear.

 For good reason, the bedrooms of the team are some of the most heavily fortified areas in the university, and while Hunk had enjoyed taking sound clips of his teammates messing around and using them to map out the different areas of the sprawling campus, he had requested each of them to say their name and then shout "Help!" so that in the worst worst case scenario it doesn't get drowned out by the rest of it.

 Shiro had laughed a little and patted him on the back. "You worry too much, Hunk," before clearly and neatly enunciating "This is Shiro, please help," like he's recording a message for his answering machine.

 Now Hunk's pad keeps repeating "This is Shiro, please help this is Shiro, please help this is Shiro, please-" and Hunk feels like someone's just roundhouse kicked him right in the gut.

 So he does what he'd do if that actually happens; Hunk dry heaves a bit into a rubbish bin, and then goes to make the assailant really, really regret what they've done.

 Maybe he wouldn't be using a modified fast-action bazooka in that case, but Hunk's pretty sure his violence level would have hit 11 anyways if Shiro was the one who had gotten kicked so...

 To-may-toes, to-mah-toes. He hears a commotion outside of his door and without hesitation blows a hole right through it and most of everything behind it.

 "Hang on Shiro, I'm coming!" Hunk roars at the ceiling, and runs as fast as he can, faster even, towards Shiro's quarters.

-

 By the time Allura reaches their sleeping quarters, most of the attack has been neutralised, HQ staff doing their training proud and dispatching assailants with zero hesitation, aided by Pidge's tech and Hunk's traps. It's a success, Allura would say, and it'll remain one until she gets the list of bodies.

 Later she'll question why she had thought things would be so easy, when nothing has been easy since the day the Galra took Osaka down and took her father away from her.

 Right now, she stands by a blown-open door and hears Hunk going "No, no, no way, this can't be happening-" as they both look into Shiro's room, and Shiro's gone.

 Shiro's.... gone.

 Later, she'll cool her head and come up with plans and countermeasures.

 Right now, Allura can't really help but to turn around and punch the wall so hard her fingers give way.

 They've had better days, is all she can hazily think before she goes to hug Hunk.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Shiro our hero! This came about when I was feeling kinda stuck and then a random prompt generator came up with Art Director and Action so here we are. Next chapter should (!) be out next week god willing.
> 
> School apps are killing me, but I'm always down to f(all into a foetal postion and cry) [here](https://cetaceans-pls.tumblr.com/)


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